I can have a vegetable garden or I can have a goat corral for five days of the year. I went goats. Doy.

As though there are people that DON'T want this on their property.

Also deer.

Deer, cottontails, ground squirrels, jackrabbits, skunks, opossum, rats, field mice...there are a lot of creatures here that love to eat/make a nest of/fuck up a vegetable garden.

Dudes - even the succulents I planted in a pot on the top level of my deck within five feet of Jada The Predator's jaws weren't safe. Something fucking ate them, too.

Sidenote: Name that movie. Hint: That is not a complete quote.

So yeah, despite whatever delusions I may have vaguely entertained when we bought the place of the vegetable garden I *might* have *one day* once we don't need that flat spot for necessary maintenance activities of our main power source and the hungry naughty wildlife has left their native habitat of our property because they decide they want their kids going to the good schools in Los Altos rather than this bumpkin shit (honestly, I have no idea of school systems. I don't have kids. But you get it.) - maybe then.

But until then, no.

And that's totally 100% OK.

Seriously. I'm fine with it.

Because...natives.

California natives and an essentially untouched 5 acre oak woodland that has almost every Sunset Zone 16 exposure imaginable.

And the same house where the previous residents decided to plant vinca and let it run amok in the front and then never did a shitting thing about the poison oak choking out the Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia for my plant nerds! Woo!) in the back and then put in a bunch of tragically tight-spaced non-native water hungry Poplars and surrounded it all, including the oaks, with drip and sprinkler irrigation.

For the win.

Ugh.

But to bring it back. To make it right, plant-wise. That's the fun now.

So, sorry tomatoes, but our field grower is perfectly excellent at growing tangy rich dry farmed Early Girls and drunkeningly luscious heirloom cantaloupe and more frilly perfect dill than I ever knew even existed in a single crop anywhere. And I grow basil and cucumbers year round, so we have that and all the other shit that comes off the farm. So no one needs a vegetable garden then, too.

Do you like the high contrast photo that I took at midday after I discovered the deer had gone to work on my new Ceanothus 'Joyce Coulter'? I don't. It's a shit photo and those deer are jerks but next spring I bet the "after" photo will look incredible.

And maybe one day, when we've cleared enough of the poison oak from the beautiful hillside to put in our little trail, I'll get to go out into the wild (but in a way where I don't meet a tragic end in an abandoned bus) to plant even more because I'M DRUNK WITH THE POWER OF FIVE WHOLE ACRES OF ZONE 16 OAK WOODLAND WOO!

1 comment:

After battling rabbits, voles, chipmunks, sparrows, and woodchucks, I am giving up on (most of) the vegetable garden. There are enough farmers markets here to provide fresh produce nearly year round, so why am I working so hard? Be forewarned that critters eat some natives, too, at least around here.

[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.